Storage

Windows 11 includes various tools and interfaces to help you manage your PC's internal and external storage devices. These devices are used to contain Windows and other system files, plus installed applications and your documents and other data files, and while most of this behavior is automated and optimized for you, you may sometimes need or want to customize or manage various storage-related features.

Defaults
All Windows PCs have at least one internal fixed disk, typically a solid-state drive (SSD). But it's possible to add additional disks to most desktop PCs and even some laptops, some of which may still be of the old-fashioned hard disk drive (HDD) type. And most Windows users are probably familiar with USB-based removable disks, which are typically SSDs, HDDs, or smaller-capacity drives sometimes referred to as memory sticks or thumb drives.

Whatever the underlying technology, disks are divided, internally, into one or more volumes (sometimes referred to as partitions) that are formatted using a file system so that they can be used to store the files and folders required by Windows and its users.

For the most part, you don't need to be concerned with the low-level details of how these storage devices interact with your PC. But it is helpful to understand the handful of Windows 11 storage features that you will run into from time to time. They are:

Storage settings. This is the modern and primary interface for managing internal and external storage devices.
Storage Sense. This Windows 11 feature automatically manages storage space by deleting unused files on set schedules.
Device encryption settings. This Settings-based interface lets you toggle Device encryption for the system disk on or off.
BitLocker control panel. If you have Windows 11 Pro, you can use this control panel to manage device encryption for any disk, including removable disks that can be encrypted with BitLocker to Go.
Disk Management. This legacy control panel provides a few features Storage settings lacks, like the ability to change a disk's drive letter and format removable disks formatted with a file system that Windows doesn't natively understand.
Storage Spaces.

Additionally, there are some key interfaces tied to storage you will run into throughout Windows 11, including:

AutoPlay. You can configure what happens when you connect removable media or insert a media card to your PC in Settings > Bluetooth & devices > AutoPlay.

Disk formatting. You can format most disks using File Explorer.

By default, Windows 11 handles the following storage-related tasks automatically:

When you set up a new or reset PC, Windows 11 automatically partitions the entire first or only fixed disk in the PC and uses most of the available space as the system (C:) drive. Other partitions required by Windows--for booting the PC, for example, or to store a recovery image--are hidden from you in File Explorer. (If you clean install...